Cooji Katrak seeks to move one step closer to the Indian Derby with Venus Arising, who starts hot favourite to win the Indian Oaks 
By Usman Rangila

Mumbai
Jan 23, 2005

The Indian Oaks, widely considered as the fillies’ Derby will be run on Sunday with fifteen four-year-old horses from the fair sex competing for a prize money of two million rupees. Taking into account the past performances as also the present form of the contestants, Venus Arising stands heads above shoulders in the company of her adversaries.

The chestnut daughter of Steinbeck out of Lei is bound to start as the overwhelming favourite to win with Cooji Katrak hoping to move one step closer to his ultimate goal, the McDowell Indian Derby, which will be run precisely a fortnight later on February 6. Incidentally, Cooji has won the Indian Oaks last year with Estonia. Malesh Narredu, sporting the colours of Mr & Mrs Khushroo N. Dhunjibhoy and Mr & Mrs Zahir K. Dhunjibhoy, will continue his association with Venus Arising.

Queen of Fashion and Yutai lead the pack of horses that have arrived from Bangalore in hope of upsetting the applecart of Venus Arising. Dr M. A. M Ramaswamy owned Queen of Fashion very nearly succeeded in her pursuit when she scared the wits out of Venus Arising in the Indian 1000 Guineas. The S. Ganapathy trained daughter of Razeen out of Fly For Baby will have the services of the stable’s first jockey B. Prakash, who replaces P. Kamlesh. Yutai comes into strong contention having won the Hyderabad Oaks at the start of this month. This protégé from the yards of Darius Byramji will seek to emulate the feat of Twin Star, who won both the Hyderabad and the Indian Oaks two years back. Suraj Narredu will assist the daughter of Razeen and who is out of Regal Grace. The dark horse in this set could be the Dr Vijay Mallya owned filly Somerset West, who won over an identical distance earlier. Irish jockey Colm O’Donoghue will partner this Pesi Shroff trained filly who is sired by Tejano and bred as half sister to Sky Raider, the winner of the Pune Derby in October 2003.